The Saints get a big boost from their 2-score win and retake
the top spot.

The top 10 looks pretty reasonable... except for the Panthers
at #2. They did have some good wins to end the season. But how
that translates into a death-grip on the #2 spot, I can't say.

The Colts seemed to have a bit of a down year on offense,
scoring 416 points in the regular season. Except for last year
(when Manning had knee issues), you have to go back to 2001 to
find a year with lower production.

416 is only 9 points off their total for 2006, when they won
Super Bowl XLI, but they faced a much weaker opponent then, too.

There's already talk of the Colts as favorites to win
the next Super Bowl. One thing to watch next season will
be their point totals. The NFC is likely to send another
high-scoring team to the Super Bowl next year, and if the Colts
aren't on pace to score at least 430 points over the regular season,
they could end up short again.

Epilogue

That's the end of another season, and the final power ranking until
September. There will be some more season wrapup posts in the next
week or so, and at least a couple historical data posts (I've got
the regular season tie frequency post nearly ready).

But after next week, FSPI will be pretty quiet until August or so
(you can check out what it was like last year by looking at the
"Blog Archive" links on the left).